Back from a sedentary week

I visited my dad in Chicago and ended up having about six days with no exercise whatsoever — except for a long walk I took one night in our old neighborhood.

For 2011, I’ve designed five workouts for myself that cover most of the movements (or types of movements) that I want to maintain proficiency in, during this period of time in which I don’t have specific performance-improvement goals. What with running CF 206, caring for our house and yard, playing guitar, and tons of reading both work-related (currently: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) and not work-related (current book-club book is Faithfull, which is Marianne Faithfull’s very entertaining memoir), I don’t have the bandwidth to commit to a specific improvement in strength or conditioning. My goal instead is to maintain proficiency and respectable strength in the deadlift, squat, press, clean and jerk, and snatch, plus flexibility/mobility improvements.

My five workouts are to be done during each two-week period. Five strength workouts in two weeks is both realistic timewise and adequate to my maintenance goals. Today was workout #1:

– Warm up with jumping rope and mobility work
– Chest-to-bar pull-up ladder to five and back down to 1 (A ladder means: do 1 and rest; do 2 and rest; 3 and rest; up to 5 and go back down)
– 3 x 5 warm-up deadlifts at 135, 155, 165; 5 x 3 work-set deadlifts at 200 lbs (wearing WL shoes and using alternating grip without hook grip–I have a habit of using hook with alternating grip and it isn’t necessary)
– 5 x 3 ring dips
– Chest-to-bar pull-up ladder to 5 and back down once again– Shoulder mobility from Scott Hagnas

Because my goal is maintenance, next time workout 1 rolls around (i.e., in two weeks), I may do the same deadlift work sets instead of going heavier. During each week I’ll squeeze in other workouts/exercise whenever possible, such as in a class, but my primary commitment is to my specific five “maintenance” workouts during each two weeks.